I have been wondering lately about bread yeast. More specifically does bread yeast produce alcohol in any noticeable amount. And if so does baking the bread drive it off?
I’ve known homebrewers that used bread yeast in a pinch, and it worked fine. It doesn’t have too much alcohol tolerance, so its biggest problem from a brewing standpoint is that it dies before the beer has gotten very stout.
Beer brewing takes days and weeks to develop enough alcohol. In bread, the yeast only gets to work for a couple of hours. Not enough time to get a noticeable amount of alcohol.
The small amount of alcohol produced by bread yeast during proving (you can smell it) evaporates in the oven, the yeast in bread also isn’t in totally anaerobic conditions, so it won’t produce as much anyway.